Tag Archives: homeschool encouragement

For those of you who don’t know, my daughter is living and working in Japan. On the side, she’s been working on building her acting resume. She is convicted that the film industry has a real need for a Christian influence. Here she is in a commercial for Toyota!!

You can only see her for a tiny bit at about 1:98 in the video above. Here’s a screenshot:

O.K. That’s my little proud mama dance, lol.

I remember when I was homeschooling her and wondering what she would become and what she would do when she was grown up. I never dreamed she would live in Japan. I also never envisioned her in commercials (and other film work). I knew she had a purpose though, and that I was helping prepare her for it. It’s amazing to me that so many of the things I did back when I was homeschooling her, have helped in small ways to get her where she is now. We spent a lot of time learning about other cultures, and I believe God was beginning to prepare her heart for reaching other people. I also believe He was allowing her to explore and develop her gifts, like her love for languages and the arts, in ways she never would have been able to in a regular school setting.

I’m also glad He led her to attend our local jr. college, as NONE of her current opportunities would have unfolded via the previous college track we had planned on and hoped for, in the beginning. Who would have known she would get involved with Japanese students and a Japanese company in the middle of a cow town?! lol. I think it’s hilarious that she runs into good friends so often in Japan. She’s thousands of miles away in the middle of Tokyo eating lunch with friends she met in a dinky little nothing town here in the states at a dinky little nothing jr. college. Cue in the music to “It’s a Small World”, lol. You would be amazed at all the little perfect storms in her life that I don’t have time to get into right now. That’s God’s hand right there.

I’m so happy that she is getting to share her love of Christ with the Japanese, and of all the amazing things she is getting to do, as God throws so many doors wide open!

When you are working hard to teach your kids and fighting about math or stressing over which science program you are going to use, stop and remember that this time you have with them is fleeting. Your kids are going to grow up and move out and make their mark in the world, even though that may seem SO far away. It’s not. You are equipping them right this very moment for all of the things they are going to do. Let God lead you in the things you teach them, even if those things aren’t in the “usual” 4 year history cycle or whatever homeschool slave that’s driving you.

Don’t be afraid to do things a little differently or to spend time exploring interests that don’t always add up perfectly in your high school credits list, or that may not be in the current homeschool “vogue”. You just never know where it might lead and what impact it may have on your kids’s lives and the lives of the people they will touch in the future.

When my kids were little, we used to spend hours listening to radio programs in Asian languages just for fun. I had no idea why I did that, lol. Only now, I do. 😉 My daughter is reading and writing and speaking Japanese on a daily basis! What may have seemed like a waste of time (we weren’t actually LEARNING as we were just listening), may have helped her brain be more receptive to learning an Asian language.

It’s little goofy things like that, that added up and made a difference. Maybe your son likes to build paper models. Hey, that’s not school!! Or is it? Maybe someday he’s going to be an engineer. Maybe your daughter spends hours building little bead bracelets. Maybe someday her super developed motor skills will be enacted as her hands hover over someone’s heart in the middle of surgery. You just never know.

I’m so thankful for those precious years I had to teach my children. It’s exciting to see their lives unfold and to see that God’s hand was always working towards their futures, even when they were very small and I couldn’t see it in the day-to-day struggles.

Archives

Recent Posts

*Guesthollow is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Guesthollow is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.